Good Morning Digitial Neighbors! Another week unfolds and we will see were the insanity of modern living leads us. Did you know there is a big strike going on in Hollywood? Me either. I can't say I have given much time or attention to any coming out Hollywood, said by actors or produced by studios. It seems about the same can be said of the music industry. I don't doubt I am missing something in music and spend too much time going back to the glory days of rock in the decades preceding this century. I feel particularly curmudgeonly this morning. Not the crab ass, irascible type of curmudgeon raising his fist at the degeneration of things, more like the old fart grunting from behind his newspaper while sipping on coffee. There are few newspapers to be found, that is one improvement I can appreciate. I still enjoy my old movies and music, I hope to discover new artists, musicians and movies or forms of entertainment new to me. They made be old to you, but I don't discount my ability to miss a great many things in life. I don't doubt I have missed some amazing artists, actors and musicians over the years.
The churning of curmudgeon thoughts against much of entertainment is something akin to my distrust of sugar. It is sweet, addictive and more damaging than we know until we unwittingly accept its presence in our life and our need for it. Sugar as a very limited additive can still be good, but it saturating everything is toxic to ones diet and health. What sugar is to the body, too much mindless consumption of entertainment is to the mind/soul. I am sure I have more to grunt about, but I need to refill my coffee and get on with the morning. Thanks for listening. Happy Monday Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers (Still miss you @SEPTUAGENARIAN )Phamily, Misfits & Dawn Patrol and of course all you ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators, Black Sheep, Wanderers and Seekers.
A couple of quotes from the Portable Curmudgeon and a nice barn.
It is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four. - Katharine Hepburn
There are two kinds of music—good music and bad music. Good music is music that I want to hear. Bad music is music that I don’t want to hear. - Fran Lebowitz
Summer barn in Minnesota
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
